Saturday, May 23, 2015

How the US Sponsored the Rise of ISIS and Aided the Fall of Mosul and Ramadi

The US-led coalition now attempting to appear as
though they are fighting ISIS knowingly aided the rise of the Islamic State for
the purposes of isolating Assad and combating expanding Iranian influence.

At least as far back as August of 2012 the
very same anti-IS coalition knew full well that the precursors to ISIS,
al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and Islamic State in Iraq (ISI), dominated the Syrian
opposition along with other al-Qaeda affiliated groups. They knew that AQI was
declining during 2009-10, yet was resurrected due to the insurgency in Syria. In spite of this, the US and her allies continued
to provide aid, funding, weaponry, and training to these same extremist groups and their closest associates,
specifically seeing their rise (and the horrendous crimes against humanity they committed) as a strategic asset for their geopolitical goals.

The rise of the Islamic State not only was predicted, it was the expressed aim of the powers sponsoring the Syrian opposition. Despite the fact that the rise of an Islamic
State was predicted to have dire consequences for Iraq, including the fall of
Mosul and Ramadi, support from the US-coalition to the Syrian opposition
continued to manifest, leading to the conclusion that this was either the
expressed intent, or an accepted byproduct of these policy decisions.

A 7-page Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) document
dated to August of 2012, recently released under a Freedom Of Information Act request, specifically states that the Syrian opposition was by that time
“taking a clear sectarian direction,” and that “the Salafist, the Muslim
Brotherhood, and AQI are the major forces driving the insurgency in
Syria.”

AQI, the precursor group which later formed into the
Islamic State, “supported the Syrian opposition from the beginning.” After suffering “a regression… during the years of 2009 and 2010" just prior to the outbreak of the conflict, it was the resumption of hostilities which revitalized them as "religious and tribal powers in the regions
began to sympathize with the sectarian uprising."

Despite these facts, it is “the West, Gulf
countries, and Turkey [who] support the opposition,” while “Russia, China,
and Iran support the regime." It was predicted that “ISI (Islamic State in
Iraq) could also declare an Islamic state through its union with other
terrorist organization in Iraq and Syria” if the situation continued to unravel, and that “there is a possibility of
establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern
Syria” if support to the opposition continued. This is exactly what transpired
in the years after 2012 with the declaration of the Islamic State. Yet not only was this predicted, it was also “exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to
isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia
expansion.”(emphasis added) This unwanted "Shia expansion" is explained as extending into Iraq. The "supporting powers" who "want" these developments are “the
West, Gulf countries, and Turkey.”

The
report goes on to state that “the future assumptions of the crisis” are that
“the regime will survive,” and that the current events are developing “into a
proxy war” between Iran, Russia, and China, and the West, Gulf, and Turkey. Further, the report accurately predicts the
fall of Mosul and Ramadi 2 years before their occurrence, stating that “the deterioration of the situation has
dire consequences on the Iraqi situation." This deterioration "creates the ideal atmosphere for
AQI to return to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi, and will provide a
renewed momentum under the presumption of unifying the jihad among Sunni Iraq
and Syria, and the rest of the Sunnis in the Arab world against what it
considers one enemy, the dissenters.”
This could as well “create grave danger in regards to unifying Iraq and
the protection of its territory.”

This document was classified as “secret” and
distributed to the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State,
the DIA, FBI, CIA, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, Central
Command, and other agencies. It is an
Intelligence Information Report, not a “finally evaluated intelligence” assessment,
yet its information was vetted before distribution.

Therefore, the US-led coalition that is now
“fighting” ISIS continually supported an opposition it knew to be dominated by
sectarian extremists, lying to the public while describing them as
“moderate.” The US predictably knew that this support would result in the
establishment of an “Islamic State” yet continued to aid in such an
establishment in order to weaken Assad and combat expanding Iranian influence.

It is a tenant of law that the “doer of an act must be taken to have intended its natural and foreseeable consequences.”(1) Therefore, given that the rise of ISIS was a “natural and foreseeable consequence” of continually aiding a sectarian opposition, the US and her allies must be taken to have intended these outcomes, irrespective even of the documents own admission of intent. Furthermore, the document specifically demarcates Iraq as a center for Iranian "Shia"expansion, while accurately predicting the fall of both Mosul and Ramadi to Sunni extremists, a fall which assures against this unwanted Iranian expansion, leading to the conclusion that the recent ISIS gains in both cities was not something that the US opposed, but something it desired. Given that
the fall of Mosul and Ramadi too were “natural
and foreseeable consequences,” and as well the severely questionable ways in
which each city fell, along with the fact that US policy in the region continued despite the fact that these outcomes were predicted, the US and her allies must therefore be taken to have intended these outcomes, whether directly or indirectly.

The fall of Mosul in June of 2014, it must be
remembered, was "pretty remarkable," as described by Noam
Chomsky.

"In
fact, western military analysts were astonished," Chomsky continues. "Remember what happened. Iraq has an army, and
the Iraqi army knows how to fight. During
the Iran-Iraq war that army fought hard and viciously, and in fact ultimately
won the war, with US support. There was
an Iraqi army of 350,000 men, armed to the teeth with all kinds of advanced
weapons. They had been trained by the
United States for over a decade. They
were faced by a couple of thousand lightly armed jihadi’s. First thing that happened was all the
generals ran away. Then all the troops ran away, leaving their weapons behind
them. And then the jihadi forces just
marched into Mosul and then into large parts of Iraq. It was a pretty amazing phenomenon, it tells
you a lot if you think about it.”

During this amazing phenomenon “the Iraqi security forces
disintegrated and fled, the rout led by their commanding officers.” According to one Iraqi soldier “on the morning of June 10 his commanding officer
told the men to stop shooting, hand over their rifles to the insurgents, take
off their uniforms, and get out of the city.”(2)

Mosul was simply given away to by a
battle-hardened army of 350,000 men to a lightly armed brigade of roughly 1,300
Islamists (3), the commanding military officers specifically ordering their
subordinates to leave their weapons for the jihadists and to flee.

Some pretty straightforward questions come to mind here.

Had this “remarkable” fall been desired by
the US-coalition in order to “isolate” the “strategic depth of Shia expansion”
in Iraq? Or rather, “had the senior Iraqi
commanders been instructed by their Western military advisers to hand over the
city to the ISIS terrorists? Were they co-opted?” as Professor
Michel Chossudovsky rightly had asked when this occurred?

The more recent fall of Ramadi was equally
as dubious.

The US-led coalition, which
had promised to defend Iraq against the Islamic State, basically allowed Ramadi
to fall, conducting only 7
airstrikes during the duration of the battle, which is such a low number as to be completely
irrelevant to the outcome. The remarkably weak excuse given for this was that a great sandstorm
had prevented them from conducting regular attacks. This despite the fact that the next day ISIS
was seen holding victory parades among perfectly clear skies, the militants assembling
in massive columns down wide open streets:

With no “sandstorm” present airstrikes could have
easily wiped out entire factions of the extremists in a situation like this, yet no attempt had been made. Why? Had this too been desired by the US-coalition
in order to “isolate” the “strategic depth of Shia expansion” in Iraq?

Further adding fuel to this fire is the accusation of Wahda Al-Jumaili, advisor to Iraq’s parliamentary speaker, who commented on the city's fall the very next day stating: “Whether this was the result of treason, neglect, or conspiracy,
or a regional or international plot… Even the international coalition has
played a bad role. People saw the
international coalition dropping weapons for ISIS. They dropped heavy weaponry to the forces of
terrorism in Ramadi. This is an act of
treason by the international coalition forces.”

This, however, was not the first time an Iraqi
politician has accused the US-coalition of dropping weapons and aid to ISIS, albeit perhaps the first time the accusation came a day after the group overtook a major city. This is a phenomenon that has been going on for some time now, in one
incident two British planes were even shot down by the Iraqis under
charges that they were dropping weapons to ISIS. Photographic evidence was taken of the downed
planes. Iraqi parliamentarian Jome Divan
stated that “The international coalition is only an excuse for protecting the
ISIL and helping the terrorist group with equipment and weapons. The coalition has not targeted ISIL's main
positions in Iraq.” This being only two of a plethora of Iraqi politicians who have consistently been making these
claims.

In any event the spillover into Iraq and the fall of
Mosul and Ramadi were no doubt predictable consequences of the Wests' Syria policy, and
in some instances it appears as though the US specifically aided in their fall. Therefore, at the
very least this spread of ISIS into Iraq was an accepted consequence of the US strategy in Syria, and at worst it represents an intended partition of Iraq by terrorist groups acting as proxies.

Given this, and the fact that the US-coalition continuously
aided the Syrian opposition knowing full well that this would then lead
to the declaration of an “Islamic State”, the consequences of which were the predictable fall of
Mosul and Ramadi, coupled with the remarkable manner in which both fell, it
would be wise to consider the claims of the numerous Iraqi politicians very seriously,
and as well to sincerely question whether or not the fall of these two cities really does
have a more believable, albeit much more sinister, explanation behind them.